Activism in Film: Documentary Blackfish
- Category Entertainment
- Subcategory Movies
- Topic Blackfish, Documentary
- Words 1949
- Pages 4
Activism is, by the definition of the Oxford English dictionary is, “the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change.”
And so by extended definition activism done through the medium of documentary film making are films that through their making, campaign to bring political or social change. The questions I am asking through this essay are, can activism be done successfully through the medium of documentary film? Is there a way to even show if these films are effective or not? Could these documentaries potentially harm the opinion the filmmaker is trying to make? Are these films futile as they are only viewed by people who share the same opinion? What I want to do in this essay is explore what effect different elements have on activism documentaries, specifically the film makers: actions, political ties and claims on changes they have made.
For the purpose of this essay I will be using the criteria for the entires to an activism film festival to set the limitations of what an activism documentary is. The film festival I will be using the criteria from is the Doc Impact Hi 5, they accept projects and documentaries that: “changed minds- a film demonstrably changed public awareness of a given issue, changed structures- a film influence corporate policy on sustainability or workplace issues; or perhaps impacted lawmakers and politicians triggering reviews or enquires, changed behaviours- a film that affected consumer purchasing or voting decisions, built communities- a film that helped build capacity or raised funds for campaign organisation and other partners.”
Looking at film makers political ties we look to Al Gore and his film “An Inconvenient Truth”. While his documentary shed a lot of much needed light onto the topic of climate change did his being tied to the documentary potentially polarise the opinion of American’s simply because of the political party he aligned himself with an his position as Vice President of America and did he potentially close off an entire group of American’s to his work to help stop climate change because of this? We then look to questioning whether having that kind of ‘celebrity’ to bring attention to the film that may otherwise had not had the pull of an audience is worth potentially turning some people away from the cause.
Having Al Gore all over the advertising of the film and also starring in the film, may turn the people who the are trying to convince, typically right leaning American’s, away with Al Gore’s ties to the left leaning Democratic Party simply because they are on ‘opposing’ sides. Al Gore became a well known figure when the topic of climate change, so this question of whether he could potentially cause polarisation on the issue spreads further than just will he turn people away from watching the documentary but the entire topic of climate change as a whole.
For example, “Al Gore was featured in 48 per cent of climate change stories on Fox News in 2006 and in 57 per cent in 2007. There were explicit references to the movie in 28 per cent of the stories in 2006 and 17 per cent of the stories in 2007. On the other hand, a leading Republican climate change denier, Sen. Jim Inhofe, was not featured in a single story on Fox News in 2006 and in only one per cent of the stories in 2007.”
If we look then to filmmakers of activism documentaries who may polarise an audience for a completely different reason we can look to The Yes Men, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. Through their documentaries, for example, “The Yes Men Fix the World” they try to get across their opinion and information on their stance on globalisation. Throughout their documentaries, they pull stunts and hoaxes to bring attention to different political and social issues and try to force the hand of large companies or organisations to make a change. For example in “The Yes Men Fix the World” they pose as a Dow Chemical spokesman on BBC and gave an interview where they announced that 12 years after the Bhopal chemical disaster that killed 3,800 people immediately in India, that Dow Chemical would be taking responsibility for the incident and that Dow would be giving $12 billion dollars to pay for medical care for all those affected. Though they are fighting and creating content to share their journey to help create change it could be argued that they upset a lot of people, the people of Bhopal who thought they would be getting compensation for the disaster, for very little change to have actually been made, for example, Dow suffered very little from their stunt, their stocks taking a dip in the New York stock exchange but otherwise came out unscathed.
“In Frankfurt, Dow’s share price fell 4.24 percent in 23 minutes, wiping $2 billion off its market value.The shares rebounded in Frankfurt after the BBC issued an on-air correction and apology. In New York, Dow Chemical’s stock was little changed in early trading.
In India, the original report spread like wildfire, causing great elation. When it proved to be a hoax, it elicited disappointment, anger and tears.”
This is an example of the actions of two activists potentially harming the view of the public on the issue at hand and even harming the work that others may be doing for the cause they are trying to help.
In his film “Super Size Me”, Morgan Spurlock takes a look at portion sizes of large fast food chains across America. He spends 30 days eating only McDonalds in an attempt to show the affect that fast food has on the human body, checking in with multiple doctors throughout the course of the month. I will be looking at this documentary in the context of claims of change that the documentary takes. 6 weeks after the release of this documentary McDonald’s discontinued their Super Size options on their menu. Many media outlets credited Spurlock’s film with the change made in the fast food chains menu however McDonalds never credited the film or acknowledged it as the reason claiming themselves that the reason that they in fact discontinued the option on the menu was in fact because of the decline in sales. Could the decline in sales be as a result of the documentary? Possibly, but this takes me on to my next topic which is how it is almost impossible to quantify the affect that activism documentaries actually have on the causes they are trying to help.
In this same vein we can look at the documentary “Blackfish”, Gabriela Cowperthwaite. A documentary regarded as so successful in achieving what it set out to achieve that it has its own phrase coined for it: The Blackfish Effect.
‘Significantly, just three years after the release of Blackfish SeaWorld has changed its corporate policies and business practices regarding its captive killer whales. These, and other reverberating influences throughout society, have been coined, “the Blackfish effect.”.
The documentary for all intensive purposes seems to have done what it set out to do which was to shed light on the terrible conditions that killer whales were being housed in SeaWorld, basically calling for a boycott of the company and their parks and also to stop the capturing of orcas from the wild to be housed in small cages. But how can we possibly prove that it was the documentary itself that was the catalyst that caused that change when the company that the documentary is about, in this case SeaWorld, would not admit that the documentary made the change happen and instead show the moral growth of their company by claiming that the change was their own idea. Also how do we measure the change, a drop in the revenue of SeaWorld in 2014 with them reporting 14% decrease in stock the year after Blackfish was released and a significant drop in tourist attendance to the parks. With them crediting that decrease to: ‘shift in the timing of holidays,’ a drop in tourists from Latin America, ‘softness’ in the Orlando market, and Tropical Storm Colin, which whipped through Florida in June.” (CNN, 2016)
So while on the surface it looks as though Blackfish is a success and was very much celebrated when the bill was passed in the US that bans the capturing and breeding of orcas in 2014 but when we look to SeaWorld today and see that there has, since 2018, been a significant increase in revenue with SeaWorld,
“SeaWorld shares surged more than 19% in trading Monday as the aquatic theme park operator showed signs its business has recovered from the 2013 “Blackfish” documentary scandal. Attendance at SeaWorld Parks rose nearly 5% to 6.4 million visitors, marking the second straight quarter that attendance has risen after years of declines. Revenue rose 4.9% to $392 million in the company’s second fiscal quarter, while adjusted earnings were 34 cents against a loss in the same period one year ago.”
However, is it better to look at the fact that overall change was made, as that was the goal of the film rather than looking at the parts that may not have been so successful?
When it comes to quantifying the effect that an activism film has on the change it is trying to make is there anyway for us to do it accurately? When discussing “mission driven organisations” associate professor in the Social Enterprise Initiative at the Harvard Business School, Alnoor Ebrahim, discusses the way in which impact can be measured when it comes to claims about social change,
“Claims about making a difference are no longer sufficient; evidence of how much difference you’re making is now required. We should applaud this trend, because results are sometimes ambiguous and claims often go unsubstantiated. But does it really make sense for all mission-driven organizations to measure their long-term impact on society?”
He goes on to talk about how when an organisation is trying to quantify the impact they are having in their mission to change some aspect of society they hypothesis the impact they have in scenarios where they cannot conduct their own research.
When looking at impact of an activism documentary we could also consider not looking at the quantity of the impact that the documentary made, such as the revenue it brought in, stock of companies, social media engagement etc. but instead look at the ‘quality’ of the impact. For instance looking at how a their impact has made a chain reaction to help their cause instead of looking that the analytics of the film too much. For example the director of the film “The Cove”, a documentary about dolphin hunting in Japan, Louie Psihoyos, discussed his take on the impact of his documentary in a conversation with The Wall Street Journal. He touched on the idea that if the activism film even touches one person and change the way they think or go about their life that the film is a success,
“And probably the most important thing that ever happened was one person saw this film, became a vegan, and decided to get into film. She financed ‘Blackfish.’ The executive producer, Judy Bart, said the film really had a huge impact on her.”
This way of looking at impact in terms of quality, such as being able to definitely say that your film changed someones mind by them being able to give credit to your film for changing their mind is easier than trying to prove numbers, such as stocks in the case of SeaWorld and taking claim for the change a company may have made after the release of a film in the case of McDonalds, these companies not wanting to admit that the documentary inspired change and taking credit for the change.